Getting The Lead Out

SCIENCE AND MEDICINE - SCOPE

September 15, 1991

A study of snow from Greenland confirms that air pollution by lead plunged during the past two decades because of reduced use of lead additives in gasoline, researchers say. Excessive lead exposure is associated with learning disabilities, anemia and other disorders in humans. When scientists drilled samples of snow that had fallen at various times from 1967 to 1989, they found that lead levels in the snow fell by about 88 percent between those years. They attributed the trend to the decrease in use of leaded gasoline in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Western Europe and North America. In the United States, use of lead additives has fallen by more than 90 percent since the late '60s, the French and Soviet researchers reported last week in the journal Nature.